If you are not willing to spend a dime or the time to achieve your 2nd Rebirth, you'll need to choose a suitable class, first. Which class should you go with? Of course, you should select a class that can level up fast, even though you may not like everything about that class, or the combinations for future lives aren't quite to your taste. Well, that's not a problem, at all! When you reach the 2nd Rebirth, you can always reincarnate your class to the path you prefer, and make a more formidable combination.
As a 7-year player of the Chinese version of Conquer Online, my recommendation for players is that you should go with a Warrior or Archer. For Warriors, they have the XP Skill "Superman", which can be used to level up quickly. For Archers, the skill "Scatter" can be even more effective against groups of monsters. These choices can gain you an awful lot of Exp in a short time.
Now, I'm going to take Archers and Warriors as my example, to give you more details about how you can get to your 2nd rebirth as fast as possible. (For other classes, the early stages are essentially the same.)
After the creation of your character, the long road to 2nd Rebirth begins! At first, all you need to do is follow the pathfinding and complete the quests for beginners. This will get you to Level 22, where you can return to the Job Center and talk to Taskmaster Chang to begin your Equipment Bonus quests. Though the quests you take in the very beginning only give you Refined or Unique equipment, the EXP Balls you receive from the quests will give more than enough Exp to improve yourself.
3 Equipment Bonus quests later, you'll be over Level 40. At that moment, you need to start to sign up for the Arena for 20 matches. In this Arena, you've got to win 9 matches in order to earn 2 EXP Balls. Then you'll almost reach Level 50, it's time for you to take daily quests from Daily Quest Envoy in Twin City (439,367). The quest you should take is Honoring the Ancestors, and this can give you extra EXP worth of an EXP ball. This type of quests are easy to complete, and give a lot of Exp.
Here's a nice tip for the daily quests: You need to keep the rewards you earn from Magnolias All Around to use later, like the Double EXP Potions. You have to finish Everything Has a Price and the Spirit Bead quests at the same time. Conversely, the rewards from the prior quests, such as Study Points, can be used to improve the seeds needed for the quest, and get much better rewards.
When stocking up enough Double EXP Potions, you want to find a place stocked with monsters, which should be almost the same level as you, and you just hunt until you can't hunt, anymore. When the last number of your level is 0, 1, 5, and 6, go hunt down the low powered white-name monsters. If you already have the Talismans, you can go up against the higher level monsters, but make sure you be careful! There's one thing you should bear in mind, and that's to take the region quests before you go out hunting. This way, when you finish the quest, you'll be able to receive a Meteor and an EXP Ball worth of Exp!
You can also take the Thrilling Spook/Exorcism quest on a daily basis. You can take on the Thrilling Spook with friends, and when you collect 9 Exorcism Tokens, you'll be able to swap it for a Golden Exorcism Pack, which will give you 50 Bound CPs. You can use the Bound CPs to buy EXP Balls or +Stones to improve your character and gear.
If you can afford an Exemption Token, which are usually sold in Shopping Rushes for 1,099 CPs, I'd advise you to just buy it. Completing the quest for your 2nd Rebirth will take time, but the sooner you finish it, the better. Every single month, the CO team will give a lot of items to 2nd reborn players. What's more, you'll be able to make use of the Chi System and Jiang Hu, and gain extra attributes for your character.
But if you insist on doing the quest for 2nd Rebirth yourself, you can leave your character on the quest map after Level 120 of the 1st Rebirth. You can even use the auto-hunting tool to collect the items you'll need to progress. These items can either be sold for silver, or kept for your own use. (Tips for how you can easily complete the 2nd Rebirth quests.)
However, this cannot be easily done with only one account being played. You can go on several accounts all at once, for instance, and play two characters. Just repeat all the quests every single day, and you'll be able to successfully complete your 2nd Rebirth.
Thanks for reading, and good luck to you all!